Three teams share lead at Scotties

Dartmouth skip Kelly MacIntosh yells instructions during her curling game against Mary-Anne Arsenault at the Scotties Tournament of Heart at the Halifax Curling Club on Wednesday. (ADRIEN VECZAN/Staff)

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THREE TEAMS, including the co-favourites, are 2-0 after the first day of play at the provincial women’s curling championship at the Halifax Curling Club.

Heather Smith-Dacey and Mary-Anne Arsenault of Mayflower, along with Glooscap’s Jocelyn Nix, started the provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts with a pair of wins.

Smith-Dacey and her team of Blisse Comstock, Stephanie McVicar and Teri Lake began their drive for three straight championships with a 5-3 win over Breen in the afternoon and a 9-4 win over Cutcliffe in the night draw.

No team has won three in a row in nearly 20 years.

The Smith-Dacey team, which replaced Danielle Parsons with McVicar this season, has shuffled the lineup recently, but entered the provincials off a win in a cashspiel earlier this month in Wolfville.

“The first game is always about figuring out the ice, seeing what the curling patterns are, what you’re break points are and how it’s going to hold up over 10 ends,” Smith-Dacey, with four Nova Scotia women’s titles overall, said after her afternoon win. “We had huge patience that game. It was a good team effort.”

Ice conditions were a topic of discussion with a heavy, but consistent, curl to start the day. The big swing abated as the afternoon progressed.

Smith-Dacey would normally have a target on her back, but she thinks someone else is wearing that this week.

Much of the attention is on the former Colleen Jones two-time world championship rink, with Arsenault as the skip this time round, and it’s last-ditch attempt to qualify for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

“We’re fairly business-like,” Smith-Dacey said of the team’s approach to the week ahead. “We’re good friends and there is great support on and off the ice. It sounds cliche, but this team actually really does enjoy the journey.”

Arsenault, with Jones, Kim Kelly and Jennifer Baxter, defeated MacIntosh 5-2 in the afternoon and slammed Duchemin 9-3 in six ends in the nightcap. The Arsenault rink needs a win this week to continue its quest to make the Olympic pre-trials in November.

Nix and teammates Andrea Saulnier, Jill Alcoe-Holland and Julie Morley, the 2010 Nova Scotia senior championship unit, beat Duchemin 6-4 in the afternoon and built an 8-0 lead on MacIntosh in the night draw on the way to a 9-4 victory.

There are round-robin draws today and Friday at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. with the last round-robin slated for Saturday at 9 a.m. Three teams go to the playoffs with the round-robin champion moving straight to the championship game.

Sunday’s final is at 2 p.m.

The Nova Scotia winner will represent the province at the Canadian Scotties Tournament of Hearts Feb. 16-24 in Kingston, Ont.